BY RAJAN NARAYAN

Both in the case of Goa and Telangana, the demand for a separate state was based on socio-cultural identity and not purely on linguistic grounds. Telengana developed a unique identity because of Islamic influence, just as Goa had developed a distinct identity because of 400 years of Portuguese colonial rule.

THE ACCEPTANCE by the central government of the demand for a separate Telangana state has plunged not only Andhra Pradesh, but the whole country into a crisis. Fears and apprehensions have been raised that by conceding the demand for a separate Telangana, following the indefinite hunger strike by Telangana Rashtra Samiti chief K Chandrasekhara Rao, the intensity of the demand for separate states or sections of other larger states will gain further momentum. Already, a leader of the separate Gorkhaland has launched an indefinite hunger strike. There have been long pending demands for a separate Vidharba in Maharashtra and Bundelkhand in Uttar Pradesh.

MAYAWATI DEMAND

INDEED, the chief minister of UP, the largest state in the country, Mayawati has sought the division of UP into five different states. Not coincidently, the rationale behind the demand for smaller states or division of the larger states comes from regions in large states which have been complaining about step-motherly treatment by the dominant political groups in the larger state. For instance, the demand for a separate Vidharba in Maharashtra is a protest against the neglect of the Vidharba region by the Maratha-dominated political establishment in Maharashtra. Significantly, the highest number of farmer suicides in the country are from the Vidharba region in Maharashtra and the Telangana region in Andhra Pradesh.

The demand for a separate Telengana, which has been conceded in principal by the union government, has close parallels with Goa’s own demand in the post liberation period that it should be made a separate state and not merged with either Maharashtra or Karnataka, which had both staked a claim. The demand to maintain the unique and distinct identity of Goa was not, at least initially, based on linguistic grounds. In the run up to liberation, the first prime minister of the country, Jawaharlal Nehru, repeatedly reassured Goans that the social cultural identity of Goa, which had been moulded by four centuries of Portuguese colonial rule, would be maintained just as the then central government had decided to maintain the distinct identity of Pondicherry which had been influenced by the fact that it had been under French colonial rule. Language became an issue in maintaining the identity of Goa only when politicians and literary personalities in Maharashtra started demanding that Goa should be merged with Maharashtra on a linguistic basis on the specious claim that Konkani was a dialect of Marathi.

GOA PARALLEL

THE case for a separate Telangana, as in the case of Goa, has always been that the Telangana region, which accounts for 40 percent of the population of Andhra Pradesh, had developed a distinct identity because of the Islamic influence. The Telangana region, unlike other parts of Andhra Pradesh, was under the domination of Muslim kings ever since Mohammad Bin Tughlak invaded and conquered large parts of the south. Indeed even at the time India achieved independence from British colonial rule, the Telangana region was under the control of the Nizam of Hyderabad who was extremely reluctant to join the Indian federation of states.
In fact, the Nizam of Hyderabad was compelled, by the use of the police and armed forces, to yield to India. But the fact remains that unlike, in other parts of Andhra Pradesh which were under the influence of the Vijaynagar empire, Telangana had developed a distinct culture of its own. The culture of Telangana was a fusion of Hindu and Muslim culture and the Telugu and the Urdu languages.

DAKSHANI CULTURE

THE culture of the Telangana region came to be called the Dakshani culture, which marked the integration and fusion of Islamic and Telugu Hindu influences. Hyderabadi biryani is among the most appreciated components of the unique Telangana culture.

Ironically, Telengana was the first state in the country which was formed on linguistic grounds on the recommendations of the States Reorganisation Commission headed by Justice Fazal Ali in 1954. The decision to separate Telengana from the then Madras presidency was made after the death of Potti Sriramulu, who went on a fast onto death for a separate Andhra state on linguistic grounds. But, unlike the more recent decision by the Union Cabinet to concede the demand for a separate Telangana state on the eleventh day of the fast onto death of the Telengana leader, the then government led by Nehru did not budge and refused to be blackmailed into conceding the demand for a separate Telangana state, despite the death of Potti Sriramulu after 58 days of fasting. It was much after the death of Sriramulu, on the recommendation of the States Reorganisation Commission, that the demand for a separate Andhra state was conceded.

FULL CIRCLE

WHEN the demand was originally conceded, the geographical limit of the Andhra state was confined to what is now called Telangana. It was only later, on the insistence of Jawarhalal Nehru and against the advice of the States Reorganisation Commission, that the coastal regions of the present Andhra Pradesh were added to Telangana to form a larger state. History has come full circle with the central government conceding to the original demand made in the 50s for a state limited to the Telangana area. So much so, the demand for a separate Telangana state has always been on socio-cultural grounds rather than purely linguistic grounds, as in the case of Goa. Goa was made a union territory by an act of parliament despite strong pressure, particularly from Maharashtra for it to be merged with the neighbouring states, not on linguistic grounds but because Goa had developed a unique and distinct socio-cultural identity because of 400 years of Portuguese colonial rule.

KODA CORRUPTION

IN the wake of the Madhu Koda massive corruption scam in Jharkhand and other scams involving politicians in smaller states, including Goa, the question has been raised whether smaller states are more vulnerable to being taken over by mafias. Admittedly, smaller states including Goa are more vulnerable to corruption not only because of the fewer number of seats in parliament and the legislative assemblies but also because the size of the electorate in each constituency is miniscule compared to the larger states. For instance, the size of the electorate in constituencies in Goa is an average of 25,000 as against between three lakhs to seven lakhs in larger states.

BUYING VOTES

THE logical corollary is that the cost of buying votes and subverting the electoral process is much easier in smaller states like Goa than in much larger states. Indeed, it has been dramatised in recent elections that money power has played a much larger role in Goa than in other states where sitting MLAs like Babush Monserrate and Sudin Dhavlikar, not to mention Anil Salgaocar, have managed to get themselves re-elected and elected for the first time to the Legislative Assembly by virtue of money power. Similarly Jharkhand, which was once part of Bihar, has seen massive corruption and the use and abuse of money power, first by Ajit Jogi and more recently by Koda. However, political observers have pointed out that larger states are also equally vulnerable to corruption and take over by various mafias.

The international corruption index has listed the states of Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh as the most alarmingly corrupt states in the country. All three are large states, particularly Uttar Pradesh and Bihar which have 85 and 54 seats respectively in the Lok Sabha. Among the list of very highly corrupt states are Karnataka, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu which are all large states. In the highly corrupt category only two of the smaller states, Chattisgarh which was carved out of Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand, which was part of Bihar, are listed along with larger states like Kerala. So much so, with corruption having become all pervasive in our political system, smaller states are not more vulnerable to corruption or take over by mafias than larger states.

MANNER OF CONSENT

WHAT is most painful about the decision of the central government to concede the demand for a separate Telangana state was the manner in which it was done. It is clear that the central government, or more specifically the Congress High Command led by Sonia Gandhi, acted in panic and in haste in forcing the Home Minister to make the announcement that the Centre had conceded the demand for a separate Telangana. The decision stinks of political opportunism. Which is not to say that on socio-cultural grounds the demand for a separate Telangana was not justified. Indeed, the country and Andhra Pradesh would have been spared a lot of trauma if Jawaharlal Nehru had accepted the recommendation of the States Reorganisation Commission in 1954 to limit the state of Andhra to the Telangana region. There was a suggestion at the debate on Telangana on NDTV that perhaps a referendum should have been conducted before the decision was taken to concede the demand for a separate Telangana.

The suggestion, however, was brushed aside by politicians and sociologists alike even though there is a very successful precedent whereby the decision on whether Goa should be merged with Maharashtra or not was decided democratically in the Opinion Poll held on June 16 1967. As a democracy, a referendum or an opinion poll is more certainly the most democratic way of taking a decision for the various demands in different parts of the country for breaking away from huge states on the grounds of neglect of certain regions of larger states by the ruling group in these states. These are comparable to the bitter tribal wars in several African states where the dominant tribes have not only neglected the lesser tribes, but even engaged in genocide against the less politically and economically dominant tribes.

But, having said that, smaller states including Goa are definitely at a disadvantage when it comes to getting grants from the Centre or having special projects allotted to them. This is because smaller states have very little influence in parliament unlike the larger states. States like Goa and Jharkhand or for that matter Nagaland which have two seats or less in Parliament have far less weight in political decision-making at the Centre irrespective of which party or coalition of parties are in power at the Centre.

This is because Parliament is dominated and primarily influenced by mega states like Uttar Pradesh, which has 85 seats in the Lok Sabha, Maharashtra, which has 48 seats, Bihar, which has 54 seats, and Madhra Pradesh, which has 40 seats. The influence of Andhra Pradesh, which has 42 seats in Parliament, will have less influence because sixteen or more of the present seats of Andhra Pradesh will be transferred to Telangana. It would be imminently desirable that the Rajya Sabha, which now virtually consists of nominated members, should be turned into an organisation like the American Senate where every state, irrespective of its size, has equal representation, unlike the House of Representatives, which has proportionate representation.

Are small states more competitive or prosperous? The answer is that small states are not necessarily better governed or more prosperous than larger states. The India Today survey of the best states of the country on various parameters has only one small state, Himachal Pradesh, among the best performing states with Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Kerala being judged the best states in the country. Ignoring the distinction made between small and big states, if you go by the points allotted, only Punjab and Himachal Pradesh have over four points compared to the three small states which have more than five points each. The states with the lowest number of points were Bihar as also Jharkhand, which scored 1.37 and 1.10. Though Goa figures very high in the list of both small and big states, we are aware of the very high levels of corruption and the very poor quality of governance in Goa, so the verdict is not yet out on whether big states are better governed than small states. The best response to the controversy is to quote the poet Alexander Pope: “For forms of government let fools contest, what is administered best is best”.